June 28

June 28, 2009

I pissed most of the day away reading. Not academically, just for fun. It was enjoyable though. Just another lazy Sunday. That night, however, Joan asked Ginger and I to meet her and her sister downtown so she could take us to one of her favorite hangouts. Unfortunately Ginger was not feeling well, so I trekked out into the city….by myself, for the first time. If I said I wasn’t a little scared I would be lying, but I made it.
We had decided to meet at a place I knew and could then move on. Joan was getting her hair-did still so when I arrived her sister Valaria came to get me. She walked by me and stood right next to me to call because she didn’t know what I looked like. The things is, I was the only white guy around. Maybe Joan forgot to tell her that part. Valaria took me to the salon to wait for Joan. We walked through the most crowded, busy, dirty, overwhelming area that I have been to so far. I will have to go back and take pictures. We entered the back side of the “GazaLand Arcade” a.k.a mall and climbed to the top floor. There in a space about the size of a kitchen (in a midtown apartment that is) were three women just going to town on some hair. Some doing braids, some doing weaves, just everything. For a white boy from Jackson, Tennessee……this was a completely new experience for me yet I was intrigued. It didn’t take long for Joan to get done, and then we headed out. For her to get her hair unbraided, straightened, conditioned, cut, styled, and colored it cost 20,000 UgShs ($10 U.S.). I couldn’t believe it.
Anyway, we hopped on a bota-bota and headed to the undiscovered maze of buildings that lay before me. Rather quickly we arrived at East of Eden (brother to the West of Eden bar in the UK, or is it vise versa?) Anyway, it was an upscale styled bar filled with average Josephs (an extremely common name here). The wood was all dark mahogany, big couches lined the cloth covered walls and a huge TV shoed the U.S. vs. Brazil football game. And that was just the bar. There was also an attached restaurant, club, and pool all. Pretty nice in comparison to what I have been to so far. Joan went there a lot so she knew most of the staff and so we got a rather good discount. We only stayed around for one beer and a good part of the soccer game and then headed home. Joan just wanted to introduce me to everyone in case we wanted to come back.
As we walked to the taxi park form the bar we had to walk through a very interesting part of town. Very urban and rundown but it was the eight long-horn steer walking across the street accompanied by no one that made the biggest impression on me. Don’t know why, don’t know how, just know you would never see cows walking across Union Avenue no matter what time of night. Oh yeah, and bars don’t close here. As long as there is a customer they stay open so many are 24/7, 364 days a year (no Christmas). Not sure what I think about that, but eh. It is always 95% men anyway.
Ok, so we went to the taxi park. Along the way we passed many men crowded around metal cauldrons on the sidewalks. Joan explained that single men, men that like their wives, and men that work late hours would all gather here for these old women to cook them a cheap meal. It wasn’t something that I expected at all. So, we got to the taxi park and out of the 40 or so taxis that were there, there was only one going to where I needed (Bukoto). In that one was only one person which meant I would have to sit and wait for twelve other people to come along. I am way too impatient for that shit. I just hopped on a bota-bota and rode home. This time did scare the shit out of me though cause it was starting to rain and I just knew we were gonna slide and crash…..but we didn’t. I cam home, did more writing, and headed off to bed.
It was a good night’s sleep complete with dreams of home.